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In this addendum to the Light Novel Review of Magical Girl Raising Project: Episodes, I will cover my own personal thoughts of each chapter of Episodes.

If you have not read the short review of Episodes, click here.

Contains spoilers to the two arcs, Unmarked and Restart.

Nemurin’s Adventure

Thanks Nemurin. You encouraged a seven-year old to pursue her dream which resulted in the deaths of five people.

Nemurin is considered a veteran Magical Girl despite not actively helping in the real world. Her ability is to travel into anyone’s dreams; both Magical Girls and humans. She able to use her powers freely like a god in the Dream World. But when she’s not in the Dream World, she loafs around in the Magical Girl chatroom, listening to other people’s stories.

Nemurin’s Adventure takes us to right before her death in Unmarked. She’s the first to die and her death sets the tone for the rest of the story. But with this chapter, it’s revealed that the last girl’s dream she visits turns out to be Swim Swim.

And look how it turned out. Can’t really blame her though.

Sigh…she’s so cute too.. and Asari Endou says so too in the Fanbook.

The Robot and the Nun

Magicaloid is the focus for this chapter, showing off her human side. She didn’t feel important in Unmarked, and she certainly doesn’t feel important in Episodes either. She’s kinda of a cheapskate with the idea of using the least amount of effort is sufficient to get by. Sister Nana approaches her in order to turn her lover, Shizuku Ashuu, into a Magical Girl, paying a handsome amount of money.

After the aloof nun gets scammed for at least one million yen with Magicaloid’s utterly useless yet comical tools, Shizuku Ashuu gets turned into Weiss Winterprison.

There’s also a surprise appearance by La Pucella later on and the main fact to get out of this interaction is that La Pucella is in love with Snow White.

Ahh, Magical Girl love.

Produced by Peaky Angels!

This chapter focuses on the Peaky Angels and Tama. In an attempt to become more popular, the Peaky Angels decide to produce a PV with Tama. Episodes focuses on Tama for this chapter and her history as a walking disappointment. What’s interesting however, is that this chapter depicts Ruler as a decent character despite her selfish actions in Unmarked. In Episodes, Ruler teaches Tama kanji in her “Becoming a Proper Magical Girl” book, everyday too.

Personally, I think that Ruler was underused as a character in Unmarked, and it’s nice to see her getting some attention, even if it wasn’t directly focused on her. This chapter isn’t the last we’ll get to see Ruler blush in embarrassment so that’s good.

On the other hand, not even Episodes gives the Peaky Angels any backstory love at all. Neither their history or their rocky relationship with Ruler was covered in depth. I could defend them saying that one of them changed for the better (from a villain standpoint) in Unmarked but I still think they were one of the least developed characters.

And I’m still a bit bitter that their profile picture are together and not separate. Throws off the Magical Girl Raising Project banner I made for the site…

Zombie Western

Like Hardgore Alice herself, this chapter’s pretty emotionless from her perspective, but I guess you could find it funny how a frustrated Calamity Mary attempts to throughly kill Hardgore Alice.

Hardcore Alice’s ability is to regenerate any damage taken. So long as part of her remains in the world, she’s able to regenerate herself. I guess Calamity Mary didn’t do a good enough job despite how descriptive Episodes portrays the methods. I would recommend watching the anime adaptation of this section in Episode 7, just for a good laugh.

Magical Daisy Season Finale!

I wasn’t surprised that one of the Magical Girl doubled as a main character in a Magical Girl anime.

I wasn’t surprised that Magical Daisy was the first character to get full exposition on.

I certainly wasn’t expecting Magical Daisy to be the first to die. Yeah, that was a shock.

Anyway, this chapter takes us back a couple of years before Magical Girl Raising Project begins. Magical Daisy gets called for a meeting by a higher up about the season finale of Magical Daisy. After getting lectured harshly, the two rewrite the latest adventure of Magical Daisy, which was cleaning trash for an hour. Sad to say, the finale was complete flop.

At the end, it’s revealed that Keek was the one behind the whole thing, forcing her “ideal” Magical Girl on Magical Daisy. And when the finale falls through, she begins her plan to make a game to make Magical Girls cooperate aka the Restart Arc.

Keek’s beliefs aren’t wrong, just controversial. She claims that Magical Girls should be fighting for peace, but she criticizes Magical Daisy for fighting a drug ring. She says that Magical Girls shouldn’t go promoting violence, but at the same time, they should fight for justice. Keek’s ideal is very one-sided; sometimes you can’t do good without getting your hands a bit dirty. Similar messages are told in Restart, but Episodes builds on it a bit more.

And QUEENS makes that apparent.

Cherna Christmas

I bet no one expected La Pucella to be a boy.

Well, did you expect a hamster to be one too?

Tomoki Tatehara finds Cherna and the two of them go off to find food, resulting in a couple of funny exchanges between a elementary kid and a hamster.

After explaining why hand biting was not a good thing, the girl sat on the bench besides Tomoki.

“Sorry…” said the girl.

“It’s alright. Kinda weird, but it’s okay.”

“There’s a ‘granny’ nearby.”

“Okay? I see her, what’s so dangerous about her?”

“Whenever Cherna’s distant family approaches a granny, they always scream and try to hit us.”

“That… I don’t think… that’s a thing… but okay?”

“Cherna, why are you wearing something as… well, fantastic, as that?”

“Don’t ask, please.”

“Okay? Why not?”

“Tomoki’s memory will be erased if Tomoki knows the truth about Cherna”

“I uh… okay?”

Odd how the elementary kids are strangely mature in this series.

Also, all of these scenes in the illustration are cute.

A Wonderful Dream

A Wonderful Dream is probably my favorite side story in Episodes.

We get a whole side story dedicated to Masked Wonder. Konomi Mita grew up with a very strict set of morals. She would be very diligent about rules and safety. Konomi didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and she would consult any manuals or guides if she needed any help. With her transformation into a Magical Girl, Konomi is given the initiative to help people. Fortunately for her, with Nemurin’s help, Konomi is able to practice being a Magical Girl in her dreams, training to become a heroine for justice.

This is another chapter that proves how terrifiying Nemurin’s powers could be. Whatever Nemurin does to the user in the Dream World, it also affects its real life dreamer. Think back to Restart, Masked Wonder faced off against a super-sized Cherna.

Anyway, A Wonderful Dream focuses purely on Masked Wonder’s beliefs of justice. Building off a simple wish, Masked Wonder works hard to pursue her ideal. Even when Masked Wonder is having second thoughts, having Nemurin as her mentor and an active listener helps refine her ideal and set her on the right path.

However, the chapter isn’t all happy-go-lucky as the title says, becoming more emotional at the end as our characters wake back up to reality.

The one thing she knew for sure, however, was her ideal to help others.

She shouldn’t let anyone tell her what to think. Rules and laws could be exploited, though it’s their ideals that mattered. That was Konomi’s way of thinking.

She is the embodiment of justice. She is a hero. She is a Magical Girl.

She is Masked Wonder.

@NyanNyan in N-City

Well at least we get an explanation on why there’s a @ sign in front of her name…

Right at the beginning, we are introduced to a mentally scarred @NyanNyan. Both of her friends died due to Clamberry’s test (it isn’t directly revealed) and she retired from being an active-duty Magical Girl, now running errands for the Land of Magic.

@NyanNyan visits most of the cast of Unmarked to deliver new Magical Phones for their test coming up. Her interactions with the characters reminds her of the good times she had with her own friends. About a year after her delivery of the Magical Phones, she finally decides to move on and make new friends, immediately meeting Yumenoshima Genopsycho at the beginning of Restart.

It’s another cruel chapter, considering that @NyanNyan got killed by a manipulated corpse of Genopsycho. She also was the one who killed Akane for the actual death of Genopsycho, and if it wasn’t for Nokko-Chan’s intervention, she would have died as well.

@NyanNyan references her previous friends’ death to Nokko-Chan after the battle with Akane in Restart. She can’t fully remember due to her memories being taken away but she remembers that unpleasant feeling.

Playing with Top Speed

Two unlikely characters meet up in this chapter of Episodes: Top Speed and Swim Swim. Characterization is done more on the former, but the initial premise is given by the latter.

Top Speed is like a mother who constantly worries about her stubborn teenage girl. She definitely has the mindset, with her child on the way. As a child, Top Speed didn’t have anyone to talk to and naturally become a loner. And yet, she ended up settling down and getting married. Top Speed didn’t want Ripple to go the same experiences she had as a kid so it’s up to her to be there for her as Ripple’s mentor and friend.

Unfortunately, Ripple realizes her intentions too late.

Back to Episodes, Top Speed takes Swim Swim to a picnic hosted by Ruler and she sees the admiration Swim Swim has for Ruler. Top Speed knows that Ruler can be harsh on them, but she cares for her group of four-and Top Speed lets Ruler understand that personally. Playing with Top Speed focuses on her specifically but the mentality of a mentor rings true here as well.

Akane and Her Beloved Magical Girl Family

At first, I thought this was going to be a cool chapter to read. Imagine Akane and her family get all turned into Magical Girls and they had to fight to the death due in one of Clamberry’s tests.

Regrettable, this wasn’t it. In fact, the complete opposite.

The chapter takes place several years before the events of Magical Girl Raising Project. Akane has become the last Magical Girl in her family. Fav and Clamberry announces that there will be a competition to see who is the most qualified to be a official Magical Girl. Out of a family of a single mother and four children, Akane, a hardworking and proper individual, is deemed to be the chosen one. The family sits down together and bickers over how to use their powers properly. While they may not have the most selfless intentions or be understanding at times, Akane still loves her family and they reciprocate those feelings.

It’s touching seeing them having fun at a festival…but when they get suddenly killed off at the end, I’m left feeling very bitter about the whole chapter.

A Knight’s Day Off

La Pucella being a boy caused a stir when the anime adaptation aired, and Magical Girl Raising Project talked about it briefly. A boy his age would get made fun of because he liked Magical Girls, especially for liking Magical Girl shows with fanservice like designs. His teammates in soccer would also probably dislike him because of his hobby.

So when he became a Magical Girl, he was given a chance to attend an offline meet-up about all things Magical Girls. He even spent all of his money to get an outfit to hide his horns and tail.

The dedication.

On a completely unrelated yet related note, have some fanservice.

The Maid and the Mystery

Given the task of being a camp counselor from her boss, Shinobu aka Detrick Bell is sent to “provide the fun to all boys and girls” with Nokko-Chan being one of them. Detrick Bell wasn’t very fond of the children so she decides in the “Test of Courage” to scare them using her powers.

And..well…

Noriko didn’t mean for it to happen.

Thanks to her Magical Girl experience, she was used to seeing out-of-place things. Also, her mentality is pretty strong, as well.

So she shouldn’t really be shocked of anything at this point. But how are you supposed to react when you see a literal face staring at you from the wall?

The next day, the wall that Shinobu created ate most of the meat for lunchtime. (I’m not kidding.) However, thanks to her quick-thinking, Shinobu turned the situation into a mystery scavenger hunt. She got to share her passion of being a detective and Nokko-Chan and her classmates ended up having a lot of fun.

The chapter wasn’t very impactful to the main story at all, but reading these slice-of-life adventures are comforting to read.

Illegal Magical Girl

Rionetta is a hired Magical Girl, working for shady organizations in exchange for money. It was hinted in Restart that she needed large amounts of money for something. That something is to pay off her father’s debt to the mafia.

In one of her jobs, she runs into Ripple and the two fight.

Not much to say about this one.

The Memories of the Blue Magical Girl

This is the first of the two chapters that happens after the events of Restart. The chapter is a lot similar to Cherna Christmas in which an ordinary person tags along with a Magical Girl and they have a bunch of adventures. The second Lapis Lazuline stars in one, however the first and the third makes their appearance here as well.

The second Lapis Lazuline/Blue Comet takes the time to talk more about how Magical Girls work and we get to see more of Blue Comet being eccentric. And for some reason, the Mermaid Tear from the Illegal Magical Girl chapter ends up in Blue Comet’s hands instead of Pfle’s.

Unfortunately, the girl narrating her adventures gets her memory erased by the third Lapiz Lazuline under the orders from the first. This section adds important details to the “behind the scenes” area of Magical Girl Raising Project, especially since memory manipulation is a big element in the series. Regardless the chapter ends bittersweet, ending with the whole “but she will live on in memory” type of deal, but I’m still greatly hurt.

Did I mention that Lapiz Lazuline is one of my favorites Magical Girls in the show?

Clantail and Friends

Personally, this is what I would like to see out of the “tragedies happened, but I will live on” area.

Starts off a bit melancholy yet reflective off the events that happened prior but hopeful for the future, ending on a happy note.

And I’m glad Episodes ended the volume like this.

Nene Ono aka Clantail continues her everyday life reflecting over the events in Restart. Nene wanted to be a Zoologist one day. Nene has always been interested in animals, and she understood how they behaved. However, she struggled in trying to socialize with people. But after meeting Pechika, Leonetta, and Miyokata, she’s become more friendly. She also has Pfle and Shadow Gale as close friends in real life too.

Nene gets a phone call after her recollection from Shadow Gale. Apparently, Shadow Gale got furious with Pfle after a prank…

‘Oh Mamori, I have no idea what you’re talking about ehehehehehehe’

and she asks Nene if she could stay over for a couple of days. Despite Shadow Gale’s ranting over the phone, Nene feels the bond between her and Pfle and she finds similarities between Leonetta and Miyokata. The story ends with a small homage to Pechika as Nene tells Shadow Gale of a new recipe she learned.

This is what her team would’ve wanted.

She’ll continue to live on. For them. For their legacy.

For her friends now, and her friends in the future.

Currently at the time of this post, I’ve read up to ACES and I’m glad I had saved Episodes for last. After the deaths so far, I finally get to read something happier.

I’ve already given my recommendation of Episodes in the review but I might as well do the same here.